My father passed away Sept. 2017. Mom requires 24 hr care and remains in the family home as per she and my dad requested. Since my dad's passing my siblings and I have discovered my oldest brother had been stealing large amounts of cash, tried to do a reverse mortgage and was unsuccessful (thank God) is in possession of a 100 thousand dollar savings bond he claimed my father purchased but won't give it up. My husband and I were contributing $3500 a month for the last 3 years to help with the cost of my mom's caregivers until my dad's passing and now what's left of their estate, dads soc. sec and very small insurance policies pays for her caregivers. My siblings discovered my despicable so called brother deposited 2 of the last $3500 checks I wrote into his account despite my parent's estate already covering my mom's expenses, so yep he has even stolen $7000 from me. I WANT HIM AND HIS WIFE TO GO TO JAIL. How do I proceed without jeopardizing my mom? My parents nominated 3 of my siblings as co trustees and unfortunately my despicable brother was 1 of those 3. My other 2 co trustee sisters uncovered what my a..hole brother has been doing and immediately gained equal control of my parents estate to keep him from bilking anymore and jeopardizing the funding for my mom's care. Forgot to mention before my dad passed he also took 85 thousand dollars from my dad's accounts and "tried" to hide it in an IRA retirement account naming my 30 something nephew as benef. My sister found this out when meeting with my dad's credit union and the manager mistakenly brought up my brothers account instead of my dad's. He's a JR which is how I THINK he's been able to steal so much from my parent's accounts, pretending to be my dad. Towards the end of his life my dad tried to alert one of my sisters, but she thought it was dad being confused and none of us EVER suspected any of us of stealing from our parents. How do I take legal action against my despicable brother and his wife without jeopardizing my mother?

7 Answers

I would contact an estate attorney. It would well be worth a consultation fee.

Could your sisters pull out money that would last a couple months for mom's care giving? If you're worried about her assets being tied up while this is being checked out, having the money available would be a plus.

SD8073 I sure hope you're wrong about putting his and her sorry a..es in jail. If their actions aren't clearly elder abuse I don't know what would you call it. Just the idea of making it public before a judge and a court of law what he did to his elderly, seriously sick and dying parents. How can that POS not go unpunished?

First let me explain that my parents are simple everyday people. My father was a career Air Force man and mom was a homemaker till the last of us 9 children was old enough for her to (despite my dads strong protest) go to work. They were by no means wealthy people. They saved for what they thought would be to take care of themselves cause they never wanted to be a burden on their children. I don't know how my father found this company to set up their trust but in one word...horrible. My co trustee sisters notified them of my brothers stealing and she was for a better word reprimanded for the seriousness of her accusations against my brother despite the solid evidence of what he did. (WTH) I want to eventually take legal action against that crappy company as well but first things first...that so called brother. When my dad passed my parents had accounts at BofA and a credit union and both accounts were frozen till all the legal steps were taken for the co trustees to gain control. Forgot to mention my brother tried like the dickens to get my sisters to relinquish their co trustee authority saying it would be "less complicated" if it was just one person. And that horrible trustee company tried to convince them as well! Thank God they didn't. Anyway hospice was called in to assist with my mother in October 2017 so I'm pretty sure they know we are divided and not getting along. It took 2 months to unfreeze my parents accounts and still even longer to file and receive all sources of income my dad left to care for my mom (some we're still waiting for). That trust company even held hostage what we needed to gain control of my parents accounts "till they could figure what they were going to charge to do that" ?!! All along I kept asking my sisters do they not know our parents were not wealthy people? And how are we suppose to continue to pay for moms care? My fear is if we contact APS or the police APS might take custody of my mom and put her in one of those God awful convalescence homes and once again freeze my parents accounts. Mom had to do a stint in one of those places during a phase when she was still mobile and was not getting along with my dad (compliments of the Alzheimers). That place was as bad as the disease.

This is almost exactly what my mom went through when her mother was dying of Alzheimer's. Her brother was on the trust and her POA so he started using her money to go to the grocery store up to 4x a day, paying his mortgage. You name it.... She got an ATTY and everything goes through him now with the assets since she passed. It’s extremely hard to have them go to jail because of him being a POA for instance (rather a POS). LoL. I understand though and I’m sorry to hear this. It’s so frustrating.

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